What a crazy mixed up day! This morning after seeing my eye doctor about past and upcoming cataract surgery, I went to the Marquette University Union to pick up talks for keynote speaker on “Forgiveness” at mission week. It had sounded like tickets would be hard to obtain for the public since students were limited to two a piece but that was not true. I got as many as I asked for.

Around noon I went back to Marquette Union to stand with some friends from Casa Maria, the Catholic Worker house of hospitality, who holds a monthly vigil against ROTC, military training, on campus. I suggested since it was so cold that they protest inside which we had been told by Vice President and Legal Council was now okay. We had tested the new policy at a nonviolent protest in December and the Director of the Union had told us, at the time, we could protest with banners and signs but we could not pass out flyers that were not approved. When I asked him if had checked with the Vice President and Legal Council he said yes, they had met the day before and had decided we could protest but not pass out leaflets.

Today, almost immediately, at near the same spot we were at in December, the Marquette Security officers said we could not carry a sign protesting the military presence on campus and had to go on the street or they would call the police to have us arrested. Again I pleaded with them to check with the Vice President and Legal Council and they responded they were just following orders. I asked to talk to their superior office on the phone. He said he knew nothing about the new policy on protest on campus that was given to him last September. He said we could leave immediately or be arrested. The three of us responded we had been led to understand that we could protest there but would leave rather than be arrested.

I went over to the desk to call Vice-President and Legal Council. As I did that the police arrived and said we would have to live the campus immediately or be arrested. As I was trying to make a call to the legal counsel the officer said “time was up” and took the ID of all three of us and said he would send us a citation for ‘trespassing.’

Clearly Marquette had changed the policy regarding allowing us to tell students how the values of killing without conscience were being taught at this Jesuit Catholic University. The trick now is, like my arrest last spring for praying in the library, to turn this around and expose the truth of
our message: Marquette teaches war and killing contrary to Gospel and Christian social teaching on campus.

Life got brighter this afternoon when I was able to help my disabled friend save another $40 on his phone and TV bills. I had done something similar yesterday. He has a ‘payee’ for his social security check but the ‘payee’ barely talks with him and just pays the bills no matter what. He is suppose to show up every two weeks to give my friend some spending cash but did not even do that this week. It felt good to save someone marginalized by our society some money.

Late in the afternoon I went to liturgy, social and dinner at the Jesuit retirement home. It is always great joy to be with this elderly priest and brothers. Many of former teachers, acquaintances and friends from my age on up to 95 years old live there. They make me feel welcome and joke about my ‘trouble making’ which, of course, I always blame on my 13 years of Jesuit education. The Jesuit Volunteer Corp has a saying from parents who see their young adult children greatly changed by direct service to the poor and needy. It is “Ruined by the Jesuits”. That is my story.

On the way home from dinner I stopped at the School Board meeting to support the parents who were attempting to stop yet more schools being ‘privatized’. The Republicans in Wisconsin have ‘voucher schools’ and the Democrats have ‘charter schools’ but it is all the same, privatizing education and destroying the public school system which our country was so pride of. Be it military schools run by Department of Defense or schools run by major profit making corporations, money is taken from the taxpayers to pay for these schools and as a result the public school system falls further behind and thus more ‘voucher’ and charter schools are created. These schools are held to different standards as public school. I waited over an hour and half and when they did not even get to hearing the parents who packed the room were waiting for, left. Talk and more talk as our public school system in the USA is destroyed and privatized. The ‘common good’ suffers another blow.

I usually do not spend this posting talking about my day but today was so crazy and upsides down that maybe I can sleep peacefully after sharing it with you. Marquette keeps attacking the messengers and ignored the message; poor and ill are still ignore and marginalized but show great gratitude for a little help; Free Public Education takes another blow to the force of privatizing and making education a corporation exercise. What a crazy mixed up, upsides down day will tomorrow bring.

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